the world: ice or fire, my dear?
by Shiluette
Summary: The world is ending around them. It take such drastic measures to make them declare their affections to each other. Atoryo. Do not expect hardcore zombies or sparkly vampires.


The world is ending around them.

"Let's play truth or dare," Ryoma says.

Keigo snorts and leans back. "I would rather not. Surely we have not gone that far into madness."

"I'll go first," Ryoma says, ignoring Keigo.

They are hunched together, walls encircling them. Outside, they do not know what is happening. They did not know for some time and they do not know when they will ever know. They wonder, individually, if they would even go outside to find out. Together, they give each other sharp smiles and say that the outside can go to hell.

('Seeing as it already has, no harm done,' Ryoma points out, possessing the crueler tongue of the two, and Keigo laughs.)

Keigo sighs and asks. "Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," Ryoma replies promptly, and rolls his eyes. There is no room for any dare to be executed, anyhow. His eyes glint behind a dirt-stricken face and his lips are very pale and bitten into scabs. He smiles.

Keigo doesn't think about the question at hand. He can't think, not really, not at this stage. "What did you do with the last wine bottle in the fridge?"

Ryoma's eyebrows furrow. "What wine?"

"The wine from god knows when." Keigo stretches his legs—but thinks better of it, for he would be intruding on Ryoma's side of the wall. "It was the only good wine we had, and one day it was gone."

"From when?"

"Back from—" Keigo stops and Ryoma follows his unspoken trail of thoughts with another sharp smile, and kicks one of Keigo's ankles.

"Don't do that," Keigo rebuffs.

"Exactly. No back from." Ryoma gives another kick, a smaller one in his defense, and stretches his own legs out before curling them back in. Keigo frowns at him. "What? You can too, if you want. Why are you still acting like a gentleman?"

"One should always maintain his standards even in the face of adversity," Keigo replies archly, and Ryoma laughs at that.

"Keigo," he says, "We're the only ones in here. That's the furthest adversity we've got and you're bitching about wine. It wasn't even good wine."

"So you_ did_ drink it."

"I did," Ryoma affirms, and gives a small flurry of his hands to imitate a mock hand-bow. "The entire bottle."

"That wine was older that you." Keigo tries to sneer, but all he can muster is a tired laugh and a shake of his head. "You are impossible. I wish we could have smuggled that in this dump."

"It would have spilled."

"Even so, the thought counts."

Ryoma huffs. "Monkey king, you're stuck in a claustrophobic box with me. The least you could do is stop moaning."

"You're just angry because I'm attesting to meaningful causes. Unlike you."

"I am advocating meaningful causes. I'm getting us to play Truth or Dare."

"I would rather die," Keigo says, and stops, because that joke is hardly funny anymore. To compensate, he laughs again and Ryoma watches him, suddenly sharp eyed and no longer smiling. When Keigo laughs, Ryoma composes his features delicately into a smirk and relaxes his muscles deliberately.

"I didn't mean that," Keigo says, "Obviously."

Ryoma merely lets his smirk grow wider, and grasps both of Keigo's ankles that had been huddling on his own side of the walls. "You could pull your legs up here," he says, "I don't mind."

"I could squash you," Keigo points out dryly.

"Not if I lean back—here." And Ryoma tugs his ankles until Keigo's feet rest on the wall opposite side of his own, and Ryoma is neatly sandwiched between his two legs with some room to wiggle. "Better," he says.

"Better," Keigo concedes, "It'll be easier to kick you when you're being a brat."

Ryoma scowls at him now, and Keigo tries to imitate that mock-scowl before he fails and dissolves into stunted laughter. "Don't do that," he says, "You only look like a bad-tempered child. It's almost cute."

Ryoma erases his scowl. "Yuck."

"And words. Mind your words."

"I can't believe—" And Ryoma stops his sentences, and Keigo watches him with another smile. "Whatever, we had this conversation before."

"We have," he agrees.

"We are running out of topics," Ryoma says, "And this place is too small to fuck. Which is why you're an idiot for rejecting my masterplan."

"Are we doing Truth or Dare again?"

"It's suppose to make us talk about interesting shit, you know."

"And we did. I finally knew what happened to my wine."

"Keigo!"

"What is it," Keigo finally asks, half-exasperated, half-laughing, "that you want to know?"

Ryoma stalls here, his face into a serious frown, eyes narrowed. He digs his foot into the ground this time and his hands are bunched up, resting on his bended knee. He doesn't answer.

"I don't know," he finally says, "But something other than your precious wine."

"Would you like me to call something else precious instead?" Keigo drawls out, leaning his head back to rest against the wall. He smells of dust and ash. His hair is slicked with oil. He looks ghastly and he can smell it. "Target another object of endearments?"

Ryoma looks at him, has been looking at him, uncertain. "Yeah," he says, and stops. "Yeah. Maybe."

Keigo sits up and brings back his legs towards him again. He raises his eyebrows. "Did you mean that or not?"

Now Ryoma glares at him and doesn't answer. His eyes say (mostly) everything.

Keigo sighs and closes his eyes. He suddenly feels tired. "I really did not expect an apocalypse to bring forth such repressed feelings of affection," he mutters.

"If there isn't one you could just say," Ryoma snaps, and without opening his eyes he knows that Ryoma would have a fierce scowl with his thinned lips and glowering eyes. He smiles at the thought and feels a very sharp poke in his knees as retaliation.

"You are such a child," he says, "First for that attack, and second for the assumption we need to have such ridiculous talks in the first place."

"Could you try to make your insults original, at least?"

Keigo aims a kick at where he hears Ryoma's voice and misses, which was a spectacular feat considering the size of the walls confining them. He opens his eyes.

Ryoma's eyes do not convey any sense of panic when they meet his own. The part where Keigo's foot was to have collided with Ryoma's leg should have happened, were there a leg to have felt that impact. Half of Ryoma's leg has been dissolved and he can only see thin traces of air that were once its contours. Soon the entire leg would be gone. He is surprised that it took him so long to notice.

"You horrid brat," he says, and that is all he can say. "You horrid, horrid, brat."

Ryoma smiles at him. "That's new," he says.

Keigo opens his mouth to hurl more original insults that would have left Ryoma sobbing, but instead he says, "Of course I love you. You didn't need to have played a childish game with me for that one." He pauses for a small breath of normalcy. "You're still an idiot."

"Okay," Ryoma leans back into his own side of the wall. "That's covered, then."

"It's very late to be renewing our mutual vows of sentiments," Keigo points out, "What did you expect to do about it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ryoma says. His voice drops to a whisper. "Die with it, I suppose."

"I forbid you to," Keigo says, with sudden vigor of sharpness, "I absolutely forbid it."

"You're forbidding me to die?" Ryoma laughs at that and his laugh is weaker. "God, what an arrogant monkey you are."

"I _do_ love you," Keigo repeats, dropping his voice to the same whisper Ryoma is projecting, "I would die without you."

"But you will." Ryoma's smile is almost a promise, and he heaves himself off the wall, his hand outstretched half-heartedly. Keigo meets him halfway. "You will, soon."

"I don't think I could spend the last minutes of my life talking to myself."

"You're not showing the symptoms yet," Ryoma says and kisses Keigo's index finger, his palm, his wrists. "I'll have to contaminate you, then."

"You should," Keigo whispers.

Even if they arch their spines and propel forward, their faces barely brush against each other. They compensate for this inconvenience by placing kisses on wrists, hands, knees, ankles, arms. Their limbs crisscross. Ryoma's right hand fades away, slowly.

"Truth or Dare," Keigo says suddenly. Ryoma looks at him.

"I thought we'd given that up."

"Indulge a living man," Kegio says.

Ryoma's lips twitch. "Truth."

Keigo mimics the twitch, conjures it up to his fullest strength. He kisses the visible wrist and holds it, holds it for the longest time until it feels lighter and lighter and his grip is soon encircling a hollow contour containing air.

He asks the question.

"Did you love me, do you love me, will you love me?" he murmurs.

Ryoma's lips curve against his will with each word until he is laughing again, small wheezes pushing past his mouth. "Eloquent bastard," he says, "I should have said that."

"Well?"

"Yes to all," Ryoma says and Keigo smiles at him. It is so painful to smile.

His eyes are the last to fade.


End file.
